


Worst-Kept Secrets

by madaminferno



Series: Seeing Eye to Eye [3]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Cuddles!, F/M, I'm so sorry, Mental Health Issues, One Shot, PTSD, Slow Build, Tags to be added, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, angsty fluff, i dont even know what this is really, shepard remembers dying and It's Bad, starts early ME2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 12:46:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13501920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madaminferno/pseuds/madaminferno
Summary: in which I took a horrible "what if" painfully far





	Worst-Kept Secrets

Everyone knew.  At least, anyone who'd served with her before could tell;  it was all in the eyes.  

 

It started with alcohol, of course.  There were now a few extra beer bottles draining in the lounge sink every night, with more missing from the fridge.  After a while it was fewer beers but more liquor -- sometimes levo-dextro neutral, sometimes authentic Earth swill (a badge of pride, it would seem), but with steady frequency all the same.  She held it well, and maintained her professionalism at all times, but she would retire to her cabin earlier each night and leave later each day.

 

At first, no one seemed to know what to say.  There were glances between crew members -- even Donnelly kept his jokes to himself without prompting.  Shepard’s groundside squads, regardless of composition, restrained their background chatter.

 

Everyone knew:  Normandy SR2 Shepard was different than Normandy SR1 Shepard.  

 

He'd never been a good turian, but he had always been a good detective, and Garrus Vakarian had known her the second he saw her in his scope on Omega.  Was it the N7 logo?  The way she slung around that modded shotgun?  Her ferocity as she took point, always keeping track of her partners, covering them even as she barreled headfirst through waves of enemies?  All of it screamed _She's alive, she's here, she's coming for me_ , and he smoothly picked off the mercenaries behind her before the realization fully dawned on them.   _She played them, smooth-talked her way right to my front door._

 

But when he turned to face her, set his helmet down for an extra moment to gather himself, and met her eyes, the only greeting he could muster was a bland, “Hello, Shepard.”  

 

 _Green_ .  Her eyes were a color he had never seen on a human.  Once long ago, in Spectre training, there had been a turian with eyes almost as striking, but hers had been duller, streaked through with copper-- memorable for their gleam at the time but still somehow dim compared to Shepard’s.  Hers were fresh green, piercing, full of life and intelligence, a color he'd only seen in the wild, sun-dappled overgrowth of Ilos.   _At least Cerberus got the eyes right._  

 

“Garrus!  What the hell are _you_ doing here?”  

 

 _You died_ , he thought.   _You died and there was no light in the galaxy.  I needed to trim away some of the dark, or your death had no meaning._ “Oh, you know.  Getting into trouble.”

 

Her smile didn't meet her eyes, and he reevaluated.  Human body language had never been a skill of his, but serving on a human ship with a human crew for such a long time, he'd learned well.  The woman on her left read as cocky, intelligent, and smacked as “handler,” but seemed unaware Shepard always kept her most suspicious allies on her left to make up for a slight blind spot on her peripheral from a childhood injury.  The man on the Commander's other flank came across as no-nonsense military, grumpy for what Garrus decided were probably the right reasons, and more trustworthy than his curvy counterpart.  A memory bubbled up, Shepard’s soft face contorted in anger as she slammed the butt of her rifle into a scientist’s temple, a circle of twisted, _changed_ corpses around them both;  her voice heated against the comm even without the benefit of taciturn subharmonics as she demanded an Alliance ship retrieve “the terrorist.”   _She's with them, but not by choice, and she's being watched._ He filed his observations away for another time.  The Shepard in front of him was certainly the same Commander he'd served under, learned from, and come to respect and admire, but there was something more there, too;  it was more subtle than the now-missing scar that used to cross from her right eyebrow to her left cheek, but he knew his Commander.  

 

And then he woke up in the med-bay.  

 

Spirits bless, but he was glad to see Dr. Chakwas.  She reminded him of his mother, in multiple ways, even, despite her alien gray hair trimmed against her jaw and her dextrous too-many fingers and her thin, soft skin barely concealing the blue blood vessels webbing beneath.   _Huh.  Shepard always bled red.  I'll ask about that sometime._

 

Garrus ignored her admonishments to relax, and his mandibles twitched in a smirk when she not-so-smoothly shirked his request for a mirror.  He could see the melted, scorched armor rimming his cowl;  he could still guess.  Mostly from curiosity (but also to save the poor Doctor from her increasingly unconvincing reassurances), he met her gaze and asked about the Commander.  

 

“She --”  Dr. Chakwas hesitated, frowned, and sank with a sigh into her new swanky desk chair.  “It's her, Garrus.  Down to the cellular level, it's her.  But there's something -- I don't want to say 'missing,’ as that tends to imply something is wrong fundamentally.  She's perfectly fine … in theory, anyway.”  

 

The Doctor became lost in memory, her brows twisted together in the middle in a way he'd found signaled deep concern for humans.  “It's her eyes, Doc.”

 

She nodded, sage as ever.  Dr. Chakwas reached into a drawer, set a bottle next to her glass -- not the expensive brandy she'd kept there previously but a cheap imitation and he filed that away, too -- poured some for herself, sipped delicately.  “It is.  They're _haunting._  I've been too afraid to ask.  Not of _her,_ of course.  She still makes the rounds, she's as welcoming and comforting as she's ever been, but now she's…”  Her voice trailed off and neither of them tried to fill the silence.  

 

Jacob seemed surprised to see him when Garrus entered the briefing room, but Shepard... she had to know he'd never take it easy when there was work to be done so she gave him that old smirk and it warmed him through the core.   _It's her.  It's still her._  

 

Words fell from his tongue but he'd never remember them the way he would remember how she looked at him in that moment:  tightness around her eyes, she had been worried;  soft lips pressed together, cocked slightly to one side, meant she was happy to see him;  but arms folded, closed -- distant.  And she was still leaned against the table opposite him, made no move to come closer the way she might have the first time around.   _Damn, but the doc had it right._ “Cerberus, Shepard?”  

 

“They -- brought me back.”  Even without two sets of vocals he heard her voice break at the end and something echoed in his carapace.  “Spent billions of credits.  All to fight the reapers.  I hate it, and I hate them, but I need them.  The Alliance won't listen, and they're coming, Garrus.  I have to do something.”  

 

He nodded.  She could be working with the geth and he wouldn't care, he'd follow her to the ends of the galaxy.  Had, in fact.  And here he was, ready to do it again.  “I trust you.  If this is how you want to play it, I'm game.  I'll always have your six, Commander.”  

 

And then she was there, in front of him, overloading all his senses and absorbing the entirety of his attention.  She smelled the same, she moved the same, and for the sweetest moment he was back in the garage of the old Normandy, trading jokes and memories with a bubbly Shepard, both their hands stained to the wrist in grease as they worked together seamlessly on the Mako.  Her expression would soften in the same way it did now, and for the span of a single breath he'd swear she'd never died, but then he watched as her shutters came crashing down.  She was still closer, a mere yard from him, but leaned away with that hip still against the table edge and a shiver went down his spine.   _Not something missing, just something… more._  

 

She visited him in the main battery just as often as she did in the old days, if not more, though it was quieter now without Wrex and Ashley and that req officer to share the space.  The silences stretched longer -- not awkwardly, no, just more solemn.  It was comfortable, in a way.  Sometimes she just seemed to want his company;  Shepard wouldn't even ask him to talk, would just sit on the railing and lean against the powerful machine he was _working_ on -- either enjoying or unable to hear the friendly, chastising clicks of his subvocals -- and she would just stare at the ceiling.  Sometimes she dangled a bottle casually between two fingers, sometimes she came in already doused in faint, bitter fumes, and still sometimes she came to him empty-handed and clear-minded.  He liked those times the most, but they were becoming rare.

 

She was never inebriated in front of her crew.  Never.  If she ever slipped that far he'd break down Miranda's door himself -- _That's not her.  Whatever you did you did something wrong because that's not her! --_ but she spent more time alone in her cabin, and more time wandering the empty halls on third shift, and even a bad turian could do the math.  

 

It was hard -- harder than it should have been -- not to put a bullet in Kaidan’s back as he abandoned their Commander.  Archangel would have done it without a second thought, but Garrus Vakarian had learned from the best, and the best was breaking in front of him.   _Prioritize, Vakarian_ , and he forced his attention away from Alenko.  She was as cool on the comm as she'd ever been, but he watched her fists open and close at her sides, watched her hesitation before she determinedly strode away from them to the shuttle, watched her jaw clench and her arms shiver on the ride back.  

 

He found her in her cabin.  She sat on the edge of her bed, head in her hands and fingers tangled in waves of black curls -- _Spirits, how long does human hair grow?  --_ her armor littered around her haphazardly.  She had to have heard the hiss of the door, had to know he hesitated, falsely absorbed in her fish tank -- _Fancy.  Cerberus’ idea, most likely.  Miranda._ \-- but she made no move, no sound.  Garrus took a shaky breath to steel his reserve and sat beside her.  

 

After a long time, Commander Shepard raised her face and rested it on her interwoven fingers, staring straight at the wall ahead of her, and Vakarian puzzled over her wet cheeks.  “Garrus,” she whispered, surprising him with inhuman timbre, “should I have stayed dead?”

 

This was the first time he looked at her, truly _looked_.  Without her armor she was just another squishy human, but he'd never been more familiar with even another turian.  The officers he'd followed, the orders he'd carried out, it all paled in comparison to the woman beside him.  This was the woman who would pick off rival snipers before they could get a bead on him, even while silently trusting he'd nail the husks flanking her blind side;  this was the woman who plucked him from a stonewalled career and laid a gentle hand on suffering civilians and had given her life to save her pilot and had gone out of her way to help everyone who asked, and he could still see it all, but now he saw her in a new way, saw the weighted angles of her shoulders, the dark circles under her eyes, the tense tendons in her wrists:  stressed.  Overtaxed.  Broken.  

 

“You didn't have a choice, Shepard.  No one asked you first.  It's not your fault.”  

 

She didn't meet his eyes, couldn't, was lost in thought far into the void beyond her window.  “Maybe,” was all she said.  

 

He met with Liara while Shepard hunted on the trading floor.  He might not trust Miranda to keep her wholly safe, but he'd come to trust Jacob a great deal in the short conversations they'd shared, and it was enough to allow him some time with an old comrade.  The Asari was more reserved than he recalled, true, but she was still Liara, still calm and understanding beneath the shiny new hardass demeanor.  

 

“It's a pleasure to see you, old friend.”  She clasped his talons over her desk fondly with both hands before they sat on either side.  “What can I do for you?”  

 

“Oh, I just wanted to chat, Dr. T’soni.”  Garrus reclined, propped an ankle across his knee, and pinned her with his best 'detective’ gaze.  “Nothing important.  Do you have a minute?”

 

“Always, for you.”  She gracefully laid her datapad aside and muted it with a flick of her finger.  “I do wish I could rejoin you aboard the Normandy.  I have a feeling our Commander will be recruiting more familiar faces, and I miss you all dearly… but my obligations take precedence.  I hope you understand.”  

 

“Of course.  There's no hard feelings to worry about, from anyone.  Be glad you weren't on Horizon, though.”  As he regaled her of that particular incident -- focusing on Kaidan's pinpoint cruelty, his stiff spine as he retreated -- her neck flushed purple and he recognized his own fury reflected in her.  “She took it hard, Liara.  Even Tali had to turn her down, did you know?  She had business, too, and Shepard didn't mind at all -- offered to help and then moved on, you know how she is -- but _Kaidan_ .  He twisted the knife on his way out, and he did it on _purpose_.”  

 

The Asari shivered in her seat, and her fingers sped over the datapad for a brief moment.  Her face was stiff, anger barely contained.  He knew the feeling.  “I must say I'm surprised at him, Garrus.  The way he pined after her, I assumed he'd always be there when she came calling.”

 

“Tell me about it.”  

 

“But, Garrus…”  The old Liara would have licked her lip or chewed on the side of a nail, but this iteration had spent two years polishing her poise and so remained stoic even in the face of her uncertainty.  “Have you noticed anything, ah… _off_ about her?”  His clicking mandibles were her only confirmation.  “Is she…?”

 

“She's still Shepard, Liara.  She's still Meg.”  He dropped his foot to the floor and curled forward, elbows on the desk.  “But she _died._  And I think it's affected her more than anyone could predict.”  

 

The Asari blinked.  “Considering she's walking, I'd immediately just assumed the reports were worse than the truth, but --”  Garrus shook his head.  

 

“I've spent some time with Joker.  At the funeral.  After, even, for a little while, and now on the ship.  He saw her get spaced.  He watched her fall.  No one knows if…  Some of the surviving crew had to be treated for PTSD and they _lived_.”  The unspoken severity hung between them.  “They were at the atmospheric crest when it happened.”

 

Liara sucked in a breath.  “By the Goddess.”  Then, “ _How?_ ”

 

“I don't know.  This 'Illusive Man’ we're working with -- for, under, against, _whatever_ \-- poured ridiculous amounts of money into resurrecting her.  They brought her back, somehow.  That Miranda woman following her around?  She led the project, treats Shepard like her child.  It took two years.  She's only been awake for a week now, she said.”  

 

The Asari made another brief note on her pad, slower this time, and sighed.  “Does she remember?”

 

His fringe wilted slightly and he met her eyes.   _The bottles_.  “I think so.”  

 

The next time the door to the main battery _whooshed_ open, he stiffened, his talons hovering over holographic buttons, all calculations immediately flushed from his head.   _I should say something.  She's obviously hurting, and she's surrounded by strangers.  I need to be there for her._  But it was Jack propping herself on the rail, this time, and his brain went scrambling in confusion.  

 

The lithe woman squinted at him, canted her head to the side, appraised him.  He didn't know if she knew anything about turian expressions, but he flapped a mandible in curious invitation. _Yes, what is it?_

 

“You ran around with her before.”  Hesitant, brusque suspicion.  He waited.  “What was she like?”

 

 _Shepard's growing on her already._  Garrus chuckled.  “Almost exactly like she is now.  Perkier, if you could believe it.”  

 

“Tell me.”  

 

Vakarian never expected to bond with a human as strange as Jack;  all humans were strange to him in one way or another, but this one was strange in how many similarities they shared.  He'd seen her around the ship a few times, nearly terrorizing the crew on her way to and from the mess, bumping shoulders and loudly asserting aggressive dominance before anyone could get close, but she spent a good hour listening to him.  Just listening.  Occasionally she'd interrupt with bewilderment or frustration -- the words 'girl scout’ were thrown in there every so often, and he tucked that away for a future question -- but she listened, and after a while the aggression melted away and he could _see_ the scared little girl she'd been, glimpsed the edge of hope.  

 

“So she's always been like this?  She just… fuckin’ _adopts_ all these hopeless cases and makes nice with _everybody_?  Fuck,” and she laughed, hearty and full.  

 

Just like before, Shepard continued to assemble a unique, varied team of the best.  He'd only ever met a drell once, but this Thane had no equal -- _even with a scope_ , Garrus begrudgingly awarded the assassin.  He was at least turian enough to admire the other’s artistry and grace in dispensing death.  

 

The Justicar was a new one for him, though.  Intimidating, distant, but still warm, and he already knew Shepard's awe.  It didn't take her as long to integrate with the crew as he'd estimated, but her wisdom was intoxicating and she soon found herself smiling with the humans eagerly asking her advice.  Once, Garrus walked in on Samara teaching Shepard to meditate and awkwardly excused himself, and Samara had found him in the battery later that evening after their Commander had retreated to her cabin.  

 

“Hello, Garrus,” her patient voice filtered over his shoulder and he paused.  He didn't know what the Code said about vigilantes, or if there was even a distinction mentioned, but Samara came to stand beside him and he relaxed.  “Was there something you needed?”

 

“Nothing in particular, ma’am.”   _When in doubt, default._  Her full lips quirked at a corner and she chuckled.  Clear eyes roved over his work, but he couldn't glean anything from her posture other than what she wanted to present:  a friendly, not a threat.  His racing calculations eased.  “Just making sure you were settling in okay.  I know this is a Cerberus ship and most of the crew is theirs, but Shepard doesn't limit herself or her recruits.”

 

“Ah.  I am pleased to report that everyone has been quite accommodating and performed only the utmost respect.”  A brief hesitation, but he caught it, ever the investigator.  “Especially Commander Shepard.”  

 

The Asari smiled gently at his understanding subharmonic melody.  “Permission to speak freely, ma’am?”

 

“Of course, Officer Vakarian.  Please do.”  

 

“Ah, I'm no longer an officer, I'm afraid.  I left C-Sec.”  Flashes of rainbow blood splatter, a brief surge of  betrayal, vengeance.   _For all the good it did me, and the bad._

 

“So I've heard.  The Commander speaks warmly of you, regardless.”  

 

“She does?”  Whatever he'd intended to say had been chased away by that one word, ‘ _warmly_ .’  That got tucked away, too.   _Later._  “I'm glad to hear that.  We've been through… quite a lot together.”

 

“And you've _done_ quite a lot together, quite a lot of good, even.”  Garrus turned to her, taking her in.  She looked a little like Shepard, here and there;  the smattering of freckles, the strong jaw, the striking eyes, the authoritative posture.  “But she doesn't tell me everything.  She sees me as a mentor:  someone to impress, someone to learn from.  Others she sees not as underlings, but rightfully and with compassion as crew.  I see few true friends for her here.”  Her eyes swung to his.  “Just you.”

 

Garrus’ talons twisted against each other.  Nervousness was uncharacteristic for him, but the tell was one he'd picked up from Tali and it was a stray bit of comfort under the inscrutable attention of a Justicar.  “I'm honored to call her my friend.  She's… rare.”  

 

Samara nodded, confirming something to herself, and turned to leave even as she patted his shoulder in reassurance.  “Speak to your friend, Garrus Vakarian.  She will never outright say it to me, but she needs you.”

 

That was the second time he found himself outside her cabin doors.  The ride up had been a confused, desperate haze, but now presented with the barrier in front of him he couldn't quite figure out what to say.  Either way he was caught unprepared by the doors opening from the other side and a surprised Commander staring up at him.  “Garrus!”

 

“Commander.  Yes.  Hi, hello.”  Talons twisted again and he forced them down to his sides.   _Might as well try honesty._ “I… just wanted to check on you. Check _with_ you.  Is this a bad time?”  

 

“Nah.  Please, come in.  I have an open-door policy most nights.”  She turned and waved him in, snagged a hair tie from her desk and threw her damp curls into a messy bundle behind her head.  “Make yourself comfortable.  Want a beer?  There's some dextro in the mini-fridge, I think.”  

 

Garrus snagged one for himself as she busied around straightening her office.  He noted the recycling bin nearby, recently emptied but containing three freshly-drained bottles and nothing else.  Against his better judgment he grabbed her one, too, and seated himself on the human-made couch as best he could.  Shepard joined him shortly and accepted the proffered beer with a grateful head tilt.  They sipped in silence for a few moments before she went first.  “So what's on your mind?”  

 

 _You.  Always you, in some form or another._ “We hadn't had a real chance to catch up, yet.”  That was stretching the truth a bit, he had to admit;  they'd certainly chatted in the battery, discussed work and time and mundane things, but it sounded better this way than what he really wanted to say:   _Do you want to talk about your death?_ And he could tell she knew the deflection for what it was;  they knew each other too well for her to not know his tricks, not recognize when he was trying to flank the real issue.  Her wry smile assured Garrus that she wasn't taking it personally, but she certainly wasn't going to make it easy on him, either.  He wouldn't have it any other way.  “Not in the ways that matter, anyways.”

 

“You're not the first to try, Vakarian.  Out with it.”  The smile stayed even as she took a swig, though her gaze fell to her lap.

 

“Commander, I--”

 

“After all this time, please, call me Megara, _Archangel._  Meg, Shepard, anything but _Commander.”_

 

 _“Megara_ ,” he spoke in both octaves.  “I can do that.”  

 

This time the silence was tense.  Both knew where the conversation was going, and neither wanted to get there any faster.  Shepard swirled the beer gently, her attention once again lost amongst the stars.  Always the leader, she forged ahead.  “Joker was the first one to ask if I remembered.”

 

Garrus already knew.   _“Dude, you should have seen the look on her face.  I felt horrible.  I couldn't even crack a joke, it was so bad.  And she just got real quiet, and she tried to_ smile _for me, man, and that was so much worse.  She told me it wasn't my fault, that she would never in a million years blame me, but_ dude _.  She was so nice about it, but she was so sad.  She even apologized for breaking my arm while saving my damn_ life. _I might have cried a little when she left the room.  And if you tell anyone about that, I'll play Nickelback in the battery 24/7.”_ Joker had given him a taste of the ancient band when Garrus made a badly-timed bone joke once, and even if his respect for the pilot hadn't kept that secret for him his fear of the guy's follow-through was healthy enough.  “How'd that go?”

 

She laughed, quiet and rueful.  “About as well as you'd expect.  I couldn't tell him.”  He briefly wondered if she could tell _him_ , if it would be easier or harder, but then:  "Are you sure you want to hear it?"  He nodded.  Megara Shepard met his eyes from the other side of the couch, beer clutched in her hands like a lifeline, legs curled beneath her, shoulders hunched, expression pained and his heart _broke_ for her.  “I remember _everything._ ”  

 

“Oh _._ ”  He didn't want to imagine, but his thoughts ran away without him.  Alone, spaced, life support broken and fading fast, the glare of a distant star bouncing off the horizon to meet her as she tumbled to the planet below.  “Oh, _Shepard_.”

 

“I was still conscious when I hit atmo.  I didn’t suffocate.  Not quickly enough, anyways.”  

 

The bottle in his hands trembled, and he shut his eyes.   _Soft body, simple suit meant for short space trips, not for protection.  Unprepared._

 

“Before the descent, I'd thought about ripping off my air tank.  Go out on my terms.  I couldn't grip the stupid thing.”  She let out a short, incredulous laugh.  Bitter.  “Tried a lot, though.  It wouldn’t leak fast enough.”

 

 _“The last I saw of her, she slammed her hand on the eject button and saved my life.  She had her helmet on, so I couldn't see her face, but even then, man… she had to know.  She had to know she wasn't going to make it.  She had to know.”_   _Joker nursing his third whiskey after the funeral, Garrus matching him glass for glass._   _“And then the Normandy blew up, and I pressed my face up on the window.  All these pieces of my ship were falling and burning, but the smallest, it…  I could have sworn it was her.”_

 

Her face was turned away, jaw tense, tears pouring down her cheek, voice husky.  “The velocity, the pressure… I just couldn't reach the _damn tube_.”  Her shoulders were shivering as she seemed to cave in on herself.  “Garrus, I _burned._  I couldn't breathe, I couldn't scream, couldn't do anything but watch --”  She stared at her twitching hands in memorized horror, skin showing no traces of the trauma she was remembering, and _cried_.  Once she started talking about it the words began coming fast, shakily. _Spirits._ “My gauntlets went first.  The fabric -- melted, and then f-flaked, and then s-skin and m-m-muscle and -- my armor was glowing, it was so hot, and then it was _gone_ , and everything went r-red --”

 

Garrus moved without thought and slid across the couch, reaching for her wordlessly.  He pulled her into his lap with no resistance and the next thing he knew she was sobbing into his cowl and he was _holding Commander Shepard._  She had died horribly and she was back and she had no one in this entire galaxy to turn to.   _I should have done this sooner_.  “Have you told Miranda?”

 

“No.”  The tears slowed to a trickle.  Garrus felt her breathing deeply against him, trying in vain to wrangle her emotions, losing.  He held her tighter, determined to be there for her while she fell apart because _damn_ had she earned some comfort.  “It's not anything they did wrong, so she doesn't need to know.  I did ask her about the possibilities of memory editing, once.”  

 

“What did she say?”  He had never been so thankful she was human than when his subvocals snapped and crackled with restrained emotion, and right now they were going wild in sympathy and frustration and pure _ache_ .   _The things she must have felt, the thoughts, the descent…  no one is meant to live through that.  Of course Shepard did._

 

“Science jargon, mostly.  Something about inability to pinpoint, untested tech, and unforeseen consequences.  Short answer was 'no,’ so I dropped it.”  

 

 _The bottles._  

 

“Shepa-- Meg.   _Megara_.  I am so sorry.”  His heart was racing.  Why was his heart racing?  

 

“Ah, don't be.  I'm here now, right?  That's what's important.  Nobody kicks as much reaper ass as I can, apparently.”  Too soon she slid away and his arms were empty again.  He flexed his talons, staring.   _Empty?_   _Empty._  He reached for his beer with a shake of his head, but when he settled Shepard was sitting right up against him, legs curled under again, fresh drink in hand and contemplating it.  He couldn't figure out what to do with his left arm and eventually stretched it along the back of the couch.  His breath hitched when she melted against him.   _Soft.  Yielding.  Vulnerable.  Commander._ He silently began to panic.  

 

Oblivious, Shepard sighed and rested a head on his shoulder.  Garrus instinctively slipped his talons into her hair, cradled her head against him, shut his eyes.  She didn't move away _.  Damn it._

 

Long after she'd fallen asleep against him and he'd carefully laid her to bed, he took the recycling down to the mess, preoccupied with his thoughts and completely unaware he wasn't alone until he felt a tap on his shoulder.  Karin Chakwas afforded him a knowing smile and he nodded in return.  “She talked.  About … well, she told me everything.”

 

“Is it as bad as I think it is, Garrus?”  She spoke softly, kindly.  

 

“Worse,” he ground out.  “But she… is willing to try medication.  To sleep.”  The doctor's face fell.  He didn't even try to reassure her.  “She relives it every night.  It's been two years for us, but for her it was last month.”

 

Karin shut her eyes tight and shook her head.  “I'll do what I can.”

 

“Thank you, Dr. Chakwas.”  

**Author's Note:**

> I am *horrible* at updating -- don't look at my profile for the love of GOD -- so I'm just going to call this a one-shot. I spent the last three weeks playing the trilogy for the very first time (and the second ... and the third) and I can NOT get enough Shakarian. I have double this written, but I'm not happy with the consistency. If there's ever more, I'll likely post it separate as a new part of this serial. Could use a beta though. Anyways, sorry not sorry THANKS FOR READING, I LOVE GARRUS AND I LOVE YOU


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